Many historical accounts neatly bookend the Mexican Revolution between November 20, 1910, the start of the uprising against Porfirio Díaz, and February 5, 1917, the promulgation of the Constitution.
This framing, however, is a profound misconception. The new Constitution did not end the violence. Instead, it ignited a new phase of bloody conflict rooted in the document’s divisive origins.
The 1917 Constitution was crafted not by a unified revolutionary front, but by the victorious faction. President Venustiano Carranza, having gained the upper hand militarily, convened a constitutional convention in Querétaro from which his most powerful rivals were explicitly barred.
The armies of Emiliano Zapata, champion of land reform for the southern peasantry, and Pancho Villa, the populist leader of the north, were given no seat at the table. While their demands for tierra y libertad (land and liberty) would shape the Constitution’s radical Articles 27 and 123, Zapata’s and Villa’s exclusion from the drafting process ensured they would never accept its legitimacy.
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